


Mother's Day

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Raise Me Up [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Gen, Season/Series 08, Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam at six with a crayon in his hand. Sam, ageless and sick, clinging to a pen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Day

Sam at six with a crayon his hand, chubby cheeked and hair falling in his eyes. There’s a piece of pink construction paper on the table, a red crayon held in his fingers. He holds it the right way, not hamfisted like the boy next to him. Dean taught him how to write when he was three, one hand over Sam’s guiding it across the page. S. A. M. 

It’s a pink heart, this piece of paper. It’s a little lopsided where Miss. Jenny’s scissors slipped. A pile of glue sticks, a bowl of glitter and cherry scented red markers sat in the middle of the table. The other kids have already begun, gluing and scribbling. Sam puts the tip of the crayon the paper.

“Tell your mother why you love her.” Mrs. Jenny chimed from her desk.

Miss. Jenny knows that Sam has no mother. She knows he lives in the motor lodge down the street because everyone in the two street town knows. Yet she doesn’t say anything to him. Doesn’t take him aside and explain that he can do something else like his kindergarten teacher did last year. Miss. Jenny just takes another sip from the flash she thinks she has well hidden in her desk.

He has to complete the assignment or he’ll get in trouble. Dad has told him time and again not to get in trouble in school, especially when he’s away. Dad’s far away right now, gone for three days so far. Dean made Sam Eggos this morning, the last in the freezer. There’d been strawberry jelly left and Dean had spread it over the Eggos, getting a little in each hole just the way Sam liked even though Dean had made faces the whole time. He thought jelly on waffles was gross.

 _I love you because you always watch out for me._ Sam writes in slanted letters. He writes it small, left room for a picture. He ignores the scented markers and sneaks a few other colored crayons away from the girls’ bin on the other table. 

He draws a Dean stick figure with spiky hair in brown because yellow wouldn’t show up right on the pink paper. He gives Dean a cape, a black one and a yellow belt like Batman’s. In furious scribbles, he makes the border of the heart black too, so that the pink of it wasn’t so obvious. 

The bell rings before Miss. Jenny could get up to inspect their work. Sam grabs his backpack quickly and races out the door. He’s so fast that he actually had to wait for Dean for once.

“Ready to head home, Sammy-boy?” Dean comes out and wraps an arm around Sam’s shoulder, herded him back to the hotel. “Good day?”

 

“Ok.” Sam kicks at Dean’s shoe, tripping them both a little until they’re both wheezing with laughter and pushing at each other.

Dinner is a frozen pizza. They watch a Godzilla movie and then Dean tucks Sam into bed. Even though Dean said he was ‘too old for it’, he still reads from one of their old comics until Sam falls asleep. Sam doesn’t dream. It’s nice.

In the morning, Dean is still asleep, sprawled out on the couch with the television playing fuzz. Sam goes to his backpack and pulls out the heart. It’s a little wrinkled now. He smooths it out as best he can and sets it on Dean’s chest. Then he goes into the bathroom to shower. The sound will wake Dean and Sam won’t have to talk to him right after he finds the silly thing.

When Sam comes out, teeth clean and hair damp, the heart is gone. Dean stands in the kitchenette, a box of cereal in his hands. But he’s not opening it. He’s just staring at it like he’s never seen it before. Without knowing quite why, Sam crosses the room and slides his arms around Dean’s waist. Its a weird backwards kind of hug, but also kind of nice because they don’t have to look at each other. Dean doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to hug Sam back, but he doesn’t move either. His breath is shaky though. Sam can feel his chest shuddering.

He doesn’t remember what happens after that. Just the card. The story. Dean and the cereal. The strange hug.

Sam at thirty-something, he’s lost count and technically he’s a hundred and fifty at least, so whatever. He’s gaunt now, worn thin with sickness and too many years running from monsters from without and within. His hair is still too long though, hanging over his face. There’s a pen in his hand, pink paper before him. He found it in a drawer in one of the offices, a faint rosewater scent still clinging to it. He’s not really sure where it came from, but he likes to think there was a woman of letters too. Maybe one with a lover somewhere, who waited for those rosewater letters from an unknown location.

He has a pen, a real fountain pen from the same drawer. It writes in such smooth lines that no one would guess how badly his hands shake these days. 

This is stupid. He’s felt stupid since the idea popped into his head this morning along with that fragmented memory. Dean had never had a lot of tolerance for these kinds of gestures. He won’t be pleased with the pink paper or the meaningful words. Hell, these days Sam wouldn’t be inclined to accept such a thing either.

Yet. It’s May 10th. Heaven has fallen. Castiel is at large in the world, wounded, human and alone. Sam is sick, no cure known. Dean paces, torn between going out to look for the angel or taking care of Sam.

Sam puts pen to paper. He draws a stick figure with a batman cape. He still can’t do the symbol, but he manages the mask.

 _I love you._ He writes and the words are stark, black on faded pink. They seem permanent there, engraved in stone. 

And there’s nothing else for him to write. That’s it, he realizes, staring down the stupid doodle and the slanting phrase. 

Well, maybe one thing.

_You’re awesome._

He leaves it on Dean’s pillow on the bed he keeps so neatly in the room that is so unexpectedly tidy. The only square of space that Dean has ever called ‘mine’ that didn’t belong to Dad first. Their mother regards Sam from the small picture on the endtable.

He picks it up, can’t help himself. He runs his thumb over a face he’s never seen alive. Dean is so young beside her, smiling. He sets it back down, reverently just as it was.

Then he goes to take a shower. Let’s Dean find the note. Maybe it will disappear like the heart or maybe it’ll get folded into a drawer. Maybe later, Dean will find him and hand him an open beer without mentioning it. Maybe he’ll call him ‘Samantha’ and ruffle his hair.

Sam doesn’t really care. He’s ageless and sick and exhausted and he loves his brother like he’s the only real thing in the world. They keep having to remind each other of that. It’s Sam’s turn today.


End file.
